The Webdings Font

That big, black speech bubble you see in the picture at right is actually the right parenthesis character – ) – formatted in the Webdings font and resized to be very big!

Then, just click somewhere else on the picture and type the words you want in the speech bubble – making sure to format them in a normal font like Arial. Color it white and move it on top of the speech bubble.

How about Arrows?

Another example is pointing to something in your picture with an arrow. Here is a previous Tip about Pointers on Pictures. That article includes some more detail on how to find these special picture characters.

Geeks on Tour members can learn more about adding text to pictures with this Tutorial Video:

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Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Question: As historian for a club of mine I just love Picasa’s Collage feature to put together the pictures I take of all the activities. But, I need to identify the activities in the picture. Is it possible to add Text to the collage pictures that I have made?

Yes, indeed! Adding text right on your picture is one of the very special and oh-so-easy features of Picasa. Here’s a sample collage with three separate text items added:

Once your collage is created (members’ tutorial video: Quick Collage), it is a separate picture like any other .jpg file. Just double-click the collage to make the editing tools available and find the Text tool at the left. Click the Text tool and just start typing, your text will appear on the picture. Once you see the text, you have several options for making it bigger or smaller, changing the angle and changing colors. Members’ Tutorial Video: Adding Text to Pictures

Check out all the options available on the left, including both the fill color and the outline color. When you’re ready to add another item of text, just click in a new place and start typing. Each instance can have its own formatting. When you’re editing one instance of text, it will have that gray outline around it. Grab that outline to drag the text anywhere on your image. When you click ‘Apply’ the outline will disappear.

Text can even be entered by copying your caption. This way, you’re assured that your identifying comments will be seen whether the viewer shows captions or not.

Here’s another example of text on a collage. I took 4 faces and one graphic image for the collage, then I added text to identify each person. In order for the text to be readable against the images, I made the fill white and the outline black.

By the way, these faces are the teachers at our upcoming Techno-Geek Learning Rally. Want some hands on training? If you’re near Bushnell, Florida at the end of April 2012, check out our Techno-Geek Learning Rally.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

I hope you all use captions on your pictures. It’s probably my most-used feature of Picasa. All you have to do is click below an open picture and type a few words. You’re done! Not only does that caption tell you a little about the picture, it is also searchable, so you can find that picture later by searching for any word in the caption.

And, captions are stored right in the .jpg file itself, so wherever that picture goes – the caption will follow. But, the caption can be hidden, you don’t need to see it if you don’t want to. When playing a slide show, for example, you have the choice of showing the caption or hiding it. You just click the little green checkmark to turn the caption display off.

The problem with captions is that you don’t have many options. It’s just on or off. You can’t specify where, what size, or what color. And, most email programs don’t support captions.

Start typing … you will see your typing appear on the picture. You can also choose to ‘copy caption’ if you want the same text that you already typed as a caption.

Move text: When you see the gray border around your text, you can grab that border and drag your text to anywhere on the picture. Once you click anywhere outside the text area, the gray border goes away and the text stays put. To get the gray border back, just click on the text again. You can also change the angle of the text by spinning the circular handle that appears when you mouse over the middle of the text.
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Change fonts, size, colors: When you’re in ‘edit text’ mode, there are lots of controls in the left panel for changing fonts, sizes and colors. You have control over the fill color as well as the outline.

Where is the Text Stored?

The text added to the picture is actually ‘stamped’ on to the picture when you email, print, export, or upload it. It is stored as a Picasa Edit and, as such, can be undone or changed at any time unless you Save your edits. Text added in this way is *not* searchable, so it does not replace captions. I add captions to all my pictures and just use text for special purposes.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.